Saturday, September 14, 2013

After getting kicked out
of boarding school, bad boy Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live
with his ditzy stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things
quickly go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move them
back to her childhood home in Illinois. Derek’s counting the days before
he can be on his own, and the last thing he needs is to get involved
with someone else’s family drama.

Ashtyn Parker knows one thing
for certain--people you care about leave without a backward glance. A
football scholarship would finally give her the chance to leave. So she
pours everything into winning a state championship, until her boyfriend
and star quarterback betrays them all by joining their rival team.
Ashtyn needs a new game plan, but it requires trusting Derek—someone she
barely knows, someone born to break the rules. Is she willing to put
her heart on the line to try and win it all?

My Thoughts

You haven't swooned until you've read Wild Cards. This beautiful story of two teens will bring a fangirl to scream. - Musings of a Blogder

I read this book on a very long car trip and I honestly loved it! It’s
centered on football, a topic I’m really not familiar with. Before
reading, I had thoughts that I wasn’t going to be able to understand or
connect with the story. After reading, I can honestly tell you that it’s
about football, but they never actually PLAY it. For me, it doesn’t
matter because there wasn’t much reason to put a football game into this
plot.

The main problem with this novel is how it’s telling
rather than showing. Simone uses a LOT of telling to describe her
characters and then their actions don’t necessarily match their
description. We’re told that Derek is a bad boy, but really he doesn’t
show it. Sure, he has an attitude, but that doesn’t make him a “bad
boy”. And then we’re told Ashtyn is amazing at football, but there isn’t
anything that really proves that statement.

What I did like was
the chemistry. There was SO MUCH tension that I was yelling for them to
finally admit their feelings. Maybe this isn’t good for some reviewers,
but for me, it means that I felt something, even if it was annoyance. I
had SO MANY feels from this book and that boosted to the rating. It was
far from instalove and actually started more as lust. I’m just happy to
see that there was more to the relationship than physical as time went
on.

This story was really short because everything was dragged
out. I actually like the way it was done. Most of the time it’s like
“ugh, get on with it”, but it gave me time to connect with the
characters and the plot. I loved how there was a lot of content within
events. It was one of those fun reads with teenage humor but it wasn’t
hard-hitting and impacting.

Only thing about the story was the
intense awkwardness that came with it. Ashtyn is Derek’s step-aunt,
technically. Can you imagine kissing your step-aunt of the same age?
It’s awkward! That was a part of the story that didn’t need to happen
and would’ve been better off edited out! If Ashtyn was Derek’s
step-mom’s friend (as opposed to sister), we could’ve avoided the
weirdness.

Male MC Derek is a guy who refuses to eat junk food,
makes jokes and drives Ashlyn crazy. I felt an honest connection with
Derek. Derek was such a nice character, even though he wasn’t a “bad
boy”. He’s also totally SWOONWORTHY because he genuinely cares for
Ashlyn, despite her being some crazy chick.

I don’t like Ashlyn.
She acts like “I gotta suck it up and be strong” despite actually
whining all the time. I hate she wouldn’t accept help from Derek because
she branded him as “horrible. Their meeting starts with her thinking
he’s in her yard to prank her and she stabs his foot. After that, SHE’s
the one hating him and it didn’t make sense. She grew on me as a
character afterwards but I’m still a little iffy about her.

Overall, I squealed hard reading this. It appeals to the “teenager”
inside of me, but didn’t make the critical side of me happy. I can see
why the overall YA audience would like this but I know for me, I’ll be
awaiting book 2 of this epic series. It can only get better/worse from
here, but I really hope that it gets better as the story goes along. And
I also hope that there’ll be more development for ideas that weren’t
touched on.

Simone Elkeles is a New York Times and USA Today
bestselling author of novels for teens. Simone’s books have won many
awards including being YALSA Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young
Adult Readers, being named to the YALSA Popular Paperbacks and Teens Top
Ten lists, and added to the Illinois “Read for a Lifetime” Reading
List. Simone also won the coveted RITA award from the Romance Writers
of America for her book Perfect Chemistry. Simone is especially proud
of the fact that the Illinois Association of Teachers of English named
her Author of the Year.

Simone was born and raised in the
suburbs of Chicago, where she still lives today. Simone went to the
University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and received her Bachelor’s
of Science there in Psychology in 1992. She continued her education at
Loyola University-Chicago where she received her Master’s of Science
degree in Industrial Relations while working for a manufacturing company
creating diversity programs for their employees.

She loves
animals (she has two dogs – a labradoodle and a German Shepherd), kids
(she also has two of those) and her family. In her spare time she’s the
Hockey Mom for her kids hockey teams and is an active Girl Scout leader
specially trained in outdoor education. She also spends time mentoring
other teen and adult authors. (She also loves sushi, which you can
probably tell by reading her books.) Simone writes about teens because
she was a teen in the 80’s (when spiked hair and blue eye shadow were
“rad”) and she loves writing about those exciting teen relationships and
romances.

Share your thoughts! I'm always looking for insight from other readers because hey - your opinion matters! Also, if no one's told you yet, I just want to say that I love your smile and that you should grace all of us with it.

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About Me

nova lee zaiden has spent five years in prison for hacking the pentagon. she's discovered top government secrets and the knowledge could kill her. after escaping, she now hides undercover at local high school in hopes of survival.
if all goes well, she leaves unscathed. if not, she and the cute boy in her math class will have to go on the run. it doesn't help that said boy is the son of the man who wants her dead. they'll have to fight against all odds to expose shocking secrets while resisting their own fatal attraction...
however, since nothing like that has happened yet, you can find nova in her room reading YA books, drinking tea and writing about her fangirl feels.